Stephen Miller started work as White House chief of staff on Monday, and the loudest objection to his promotion is not coming from Democrats. It is coming from a Republican congressman who says the president should have fired him.
Representative Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, who won re-election on Tuesday, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Sunday that promoting Miller was a bad mistake. “I come from the business world just like President Trump does,” he said. “If your team takes a beating as badly as we took this last week, you have to fire people. You don’t promote those who were in charge of what was supposed to be delivered.” Asked whether Miller should be out of a job instead, he said yes. Miller, he added, “is not liked out here in the Midwest by people. They don’t like his tone.”
The background is the midterm result. Republicans lost both chambers of Congress last Tuesday, and Miller, as deputy chief of staff for policy, was the architect of the immigration crackdown that many in his own party blame for the scale of the loss. Stutzman had called the move a “horrible decision” to Fox News on Friday, hours after the president announced it, and said the crackdown had cost the party its goodwill with Latino voters. Retiring Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said before the announcement that Miller had greatly hurt the administration and cost the party many seats. Other House Republicans, speaking anonymously to Fox News, described disbelief and said they had warned Miller in group meetings that the enforcement policy was backfiring in their districts, with voters and businesses alike.
The president’s own account of the choice is on the record. Announcing it on Truth Social on Friday, Trump called Miller “one of my most trusted advisors,” said he “gets it” and is “very good politically,” and praised the outgoing chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who moves to his political operation. A White House spokesperson, Lauren Bis, gave the Indianapolis Star a statement that did not address Stutzman’s comments directly.
Democrats, for their part, are not treating Miller as a partner for the new Congress. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, asked at a Monday news conference whether Miller could work with Democrats, called him a “stone cold racist.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment on that remark, USA Today reported.
Why it matters is the two years ahead. The chief of staff is the person who manages the White House’s dealings with Congress, and the Congress arriving in January is controlled by the other party. Trump spent the weekend telling interviewers he wants to work with Democrats, on immigration and even on AI rules. His party’s own members are telling him, in public, that the man he just put in the middle of that relationship is the problem. Both things are now true at once, and the lame duck session that opened Monday is where they will collide.
Transparency note: Stutzman’s remarks are from his CNN interview as reported by CNN, the Washington Post, the Indianapolis Star and The Hill. The anonymous Republican comments are Fox News reporting and are described as such. Characterizations of Miller by his critics are their words, attributed in the story.
